You Come When I Call You

The Barnes & Noble ReviewBARNES & NOBLE.com review of Doug Clegg's You Come When I Call You

Horror writer Douglas Clegg has built a growing and dedicated audience for his chilling prose by penning creepy delights that include such recent offerings as THE HALLOWEEN MAN and THE NIGHTMARE CHRONICLES. His latest chiller has been 12 years in the making, during which time Clegg has obviously been busy honing his already remarkable talents. The result is well worth the wait; apparently Clegg's fiction, like a fine wine, improves with age. YOU COME WHEN I CALL YOU is an exquisite epic that spans two decades and highlights the lives of four friends who face unspeakable terror and the worst of horrors. This is the stuff the best nightmares are made of.

Between the California desert towns of Palmetto and Nitro lurks an evil that is more powerful, more terrifying than anyone can possibly imagine. But there is no need to imagine it, for several of the townspeople will experience it firsthand. For it is here that the primordial demon, Lamia, makes herself known. She appears for the first time in 1980, and before she's done, Palmetto will be a burned-out shell of a town, most of its tenants seemingly vaporized in a catastrophic fire. Only a handful will survive the encounter - all teenagers at the time - but survival is not enough. For they have committed a deed so heinous, so utterly shocking, that it will haunt them for the rest of their lives. And Lamia is neither gone nor defeated, only subdued. The survivors have taken something from her. And she will stop at nothing to get it back.

Twenty yearslater,Lamia calls to them. It starts with a dead body left on the stairs of a church. Then come the nightmare visions that are all too real. The survivors know there will be no escape, that they must return to the burned-out ruins of Palmetto to confront and destroy the most frightening force imaginable. They know their chances of success are miniscule, that it would be wiser to run and try to escape. But they can't. Despite their best efforts to resist, they are powerless not to come when she calls.

Clegg is masterful at doling out the suspense. The story isn't told in linear time, and the cascading events from each encounter are told in alternating crescendos of terror that culminate in an explosive finish. Despite the time jumps, Clegg weaves the periods together into a seamless tale, the utter horror of the first only serving to accentuate the horror of the last. The imagery here is vivid and visceral; this is not one for the weak of heart or the weak of stomach. But if you love the sensation of hairs rising along the back of your neck and goosebumps chasing each other down your spine, then YOU COME WHEN I CALL YOU is the perfect choice.

-Beth Amos

Beth Amos is the author of several mainstream suspense thrillers, including SECOND SIGHT, EYES OF NIGHT, and COLD WHITE FURY. She lives in Wisconsin and is at work on her next novel.